U.S. News & World Report Releases Proposed New Ranking Methodology for Rehabilitation Hospitals for 2020-2021 AMRPA to Provide Substantive Comment on Proposed Methodology
Kate A. Beller, JD, AMRPA Executive Vice President for Policy Development and Government Relations
In March 2019, U.S. News & World Report announced its intent to shift from relying solely on expert opinion in its rehabilitation hospital rankings and incorporate certain types of objective data in its methodology. As part of this effort, U.S. News has participated in months-long engagement with the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association (AMRPA) and other stakeholders to determine what other inputs should be considered as it works to revise its methodology, as well as the appropriate weights for those inputs. The revised rankings will initially focus on what U.S. News views as “high acuity” rehabilitation care. U.S. News (working in conjunction with its contractor, Research Triangle Institute, Inc. [RTI]) also indicated interest in identifying data sources that could be incorporated in future ranking years, including all-payer registries. Over the course of numerous meetings, an AMRPA workgroup has been providing the U.S. News/RTI team with feedback on: 1) the current data sources and specific measures that U.S. News has identified for consideration; 2) other data sources that should be factored into the rankings in either the 2020-2021 rankings or future years; or 3) operational issues for U.S. News’ consideration, such as the fact that that certain patient populations are not reflected in some of the datasets under consideration. U.S. News expressed strong interest in a number of recommendations set forth from the AMRPA workgroup, such as including stroke as one the conditions that should be considered as part of the hospital’s “high acuity care” (in addition to traumatic brain injury and traumatic spinal cord injury). Additionally, the U.S. News/RTI team expressed interest in further discussion of some inputs that could be included in current and future ranking editions, such as condition-specific CARF accreditation and teaching status. There was also discussion of implementation/operational issues tied to some of the inputs under consideration, such as taking into account the relationship of a hospital’s patient complexity and number of interrupted stays and other issues involving risk adjustment. U.S. News expressed interest in continuing to work with AMRPA as it finalized the upcoming 2020-2021 methodology, as well as future refinements to the inputs and weights included in its work.
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MedPAC June 2016 Report to Congress
AMRPA Magazine / March 2020 21
